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West Cornwall: it’s not as far as you think. Honestly! If you haven’t been down here for a while, you may have childhood memories of long, hot traffic jams. However, the roads are being improved all the time, and the dualled stretch across Bodmin Moor has solved one of the A30’s biggest bottlenecks.
Yes, it does still get busy, and you may have to clock up a few hundred miles to get here. However, our guests are mines of information, and they’ve given us these gems of journeying hints and tips.
Switch on that SatNav, and head off into the sunset. We’ll see you soon.
We’ll start with the trickiest bit: young children on a long journey. Journeys follow the same pattern: excitement; over-excitement; hunger; boredom; fighting with sibling; more boredom. Now’s not the time to worry about screen hours, as tablets and portable DVD players are your new best friends. Also try story and favourite music CDs. Regular stops are essential. Plan your route to take in interesting places to stop.
Combine comfort stops with a couple of hours in an interesting place. National Trust gardens make great places for the kids and dogs to run off some en-route energy. Hanbury Hall is just four miles from Junction 4 of the M5. Killerton in Devon is seven miles from the motorway, and has over 6,000 acres of parkland.
Take a break at Slimbridge Wetlands Centre, close to Junction 13 of the M5, and enjoy a stroll around this lovely nature reserve.
If you’re mainly on the motorway, you’ll probably take in a service station or two. Back in the day when we were kids, service stations weren’t child-friendly. Now, the refurbished ones have outdoor playgrounds for letting off steam, a choice of places to eat, and a good stock of CBeebies magazines for the next leg of the journey. The advantage of service stations is you can usually find place to park a caravan, and you and your motor can refuel on coffee and petrol, respectively.
Some of our guests have advised taking a break towards the end of the journey so you’ll arrive feeling ready to hitch up and unload. Cornwall Services near Bodmin is a really handy new place for that late-in-the-journey stop. You can grab a bite to eat here, shop, as well as entertain the kids in the soft play centre. And if it’s open, don’t miss The Cornish Pizza Kitchen with its wood-fired pizzas.
